4EvaNADay: A Day Well Spent (A Big K.R.I.T. Review)

K.R.I.T.’s latest project has something for every point in the day, so I decided to play it from morning well into the evening to see how it carried.

I kicked my day off appropriately with “Wake Up”. Usually, I’m the type to wake up to N.W.A. or The Beatnuts or something more lively, but this was a nice beginning…mellow and motivational all at the same time. When “Yesterday” popped up on the shuffle, I caught an unexpected personal moment as I was reminded of my grandfather, whose name is tatted on my arm but who unfortunately did not live to see my son born. “I miss you like yesterday” is repeated on the hook, a basic phrase that implies missing something that will never return to you.

After work, I got in the car and bent corners to the joints like the title track and “Me And My Old School”. It was cold out and a G damn near froze his arm off trying to keep the window down and the volume high, but this is the type of feeling I like to share. After all the thoughtful songs that make you reflect, K.R.I.T. never disappoints at giving you a good helping of pure riding music. There are tracks that make you commend his flow, tracks that make you commend his production, and even his singing, but you’re more likely to appreciate the whole package as it comes together.

At the end of this ride, one realizes that there were no featured MCs on this project and that K.R.I.T. produced it entirely by himself. How often do you get a product completely dreamt up, brought to fruition, and packaged for the masses by one man? And for it to be quality work? A rarity. The realist in me makes me worry for K.R.I.T.’s first major label LP, but the business student in me allows me to see the bigger picture. The more an artist grooms his fan-base to expect a certain level of quality and to go with whatever the artist puts out and whatever direction he decides to go in, the more likely a label is to grant the artist autonomy and funding to put out a continuation of his previous work, albeit with a larger marketing machine behind it.

I don’t know if I’ll be playing this album in a couple days, to be 100% honest with you. I don’t know if I’ll be playing it in five years…but hopefully, I’ll be playing whatever the latest K.R.I.T. is at that point in time. I’m not worried about five years from now, though..for right now, this is killing a lot of what’s out there because it covers so many bases effectively. You don’t have to have the flyest car or smoke the best weed to relate to K.R.I.T. Ever been through pain? You can relate to some K.R.I.T. Ever worked too hard for too little? You can relate to K.R.I.T. Ever wanted to say “forget the club” and post up outside in front of whatever you’re driving and wait for it to let out with your people? This is that music. It’s accessible to the common man, yet still inspires growth, introspection and hope for one day doing better than we are. Sounds like good food to me.